


1-6 Cat Fingers

by iippo



Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [6]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25178980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iippo/pseuds/iippo
Summary: Steven attempts to master the power of shapeshifting, but can only manage to shapeshift his fingers into tiny cat heads.
Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796686
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1-6 Cat Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> An alternative universe. See series page for details.

It was a warm, cloudy day in Beach City. Greg Universe was at work at It’s A Wash, the car wash he owned. His half-human, half-gem son Steven was helping out.

“Almost done!” Greg called to Steven across the van they were washing, and sprayed the windshield with a hose. “Get the hubcaps!” 

“Hubbing it up!”Steven replied from the other side, and started polishing the hubcaps faster.

“Hub it good!” Greg encouraged, “this is a high profile job!”

Steven stood up and looked the van up and down. The beige van had blue and red election slogans all over it, and a giant head on the roof. “You mean ‘cause it's the mayor's election-mobile?”

Greg kept hosing the van down. “If we do this right, we might get _political favors_!” He raised his eyebrows and wiggled the fingers on his free hand.

“I'm not sure what that is, but I like it!” Steven exclaimed and picked up a hose. He turned the water on but accidentally overshot it and sprayed over the van, hitting Greg with a water.

Greg laughed and retaliated, declaring an all-out hose fight. They both laughed as they got soaked from head to toe.

Neither of them noticed mayor Dewey approaching across the parking lot. “Hey, hey, hey! I'm not paying for father-son bonding here!” He chided, wagging his finger.

Steven spun around at the sound of his voice but unfortunately didn’t turn off his hose; the stream of water shot the mayor square in the face. Steven smiled but the mayor did not. He didn’t even look at Steven. “Universe!” He yelled, wiping water off his suit. “Control that kid,” he barked, pointing to Steven.

“Steven!” Greg chided and stepped towards them as Steven’s smile faltered and he tried to figure out why it was fun and okay to spray his dad but not mayor Dewey. Surely all people liked water hose fights?

Greg stood behind Steven, positioning himself between his son and the mayor, while mayor Dewey walked towards the van. Greg laughed nervously. “I’m sorry mayor Dewey. This one’s on the house,” he offered, hoping Steven wouldn’t get into trouble.

Mayor Dewey was glad to take advantage of the situation. “On the house, eh...?” He mused while inspecting the washjob on the van. “I like the way you do business, Universe,” he said, accentuating his words with a fingergun salute to Greg. He hopped in the van and started the engine. The loudspeakers immediately started blaring a mechanically distorted chorus of “Mayor! Dewey!” He drove away from the carwash and was gone.

Greg sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

Steven snuck up to his dad with a sneaky expression, wiggling his fingers, and reminded Greg with a sing-song voice: “Political favours...!”

Greg picked him up and held him under his arm. “Ahh, you rascal!” He said while noogieing Steven. “Enough with the hose fights!” Steven grabbed his arm to stop the mussing of hair. “Aw, okay.”

Immediately they both got hosed, completely by surprise.

Greg turned towards the direction the water was coming from, effectively turning Steven to face it too. “What the-?”

A purple cat was sitting on the parking lot, with a hose in its mouth. Greg put Steven down. The cat launched towards them.

“Whoa!” Greg and Steven exclaimed at the same time. The cat got them with the hose again and they turned around to run away. The cat chased them, spraying them from behind. Steven laughed and threw his hands in the air, but Greg glanced behind them, baffled. “What is with this cat?” He exclaimed.

The cat stopped and turned into blurry white light with a purple gemstone hovering in the middle. The light grew in size and solidified to a different purple shape. And soon Amethyst, Steven’s partner in world-saving and evil-fighting was sitting on the asphalt with the hose in her mouth. She took the hose in her hand and laughed. “Haha! Got you guys!”

Steven was delighted. “Amethyst!” He ran up to her.

“Uh, pretty cool Amethyst,” Greg said, feeling uncomfortable, but Steven didn’t notice. “Really cool!” Steven said. “I wish I could shapeshift like you!” Greg felt even more uncomfortable hearing that.

“You could probably learn,” Amethyst said and tied the hose into a knot so the water would stop.

“Really?” Steven was astonished.

“Sure. You’ve got a gem,” she replied and pulled up Steven’s shirt to make her point. She kind of regretted doing that as soon as she did, because the sight of the Rose Quartz gem, her only fellow gem friend ever, struck her somewhere deep. She realised that with the way Steven wore his shirts, she never saw his gem. Unlike the way how Rose always had it out in a star-shaped hole cut in the front of her dress. They really were different people. Rose really was gone.

Amethyst’s sad thoughts were interrupted by Greg, finally voicing his discomfort. “Whup! Magic stuff. Should I get out of here? Is there going to be an explosion?” He took a few steps back.

“Oh it’s no big deal dad,” Steven said, pulling his shirt down. Amethyst made a mental note to herself to leave Steven’s shirt alone in the future. And to get her thoughts away from things that made her sad, she did what she always did when she didn’t want to deal with who she was and what her life was like: she shapeshifted. Specifically, she shapeshifted into Steven, and replied to Greg: “Yeah, it’s fiiiiine.”

Greg yelped in surprise. He didn’t like it when Amethyst shapeshifted and he especially didn’t like it when Amethyst shapeshifted into people he loved.

Amethyst felt like she went too far, and shapeshifted into a seal. “Arp, arp, arp, arp!” She said, imitating a seal noise.

Greg frowned but Steven laughed. “Do more!” He giggled.

“Check it out,” Amethyst replied, going full into performance mode. She turned into a wolf, pointed her snoot to the sky and howled “awoo!” Then she took the shape of a huge man in a wrestling costume and growled while flexing her muscles. Next she shapeshifted into a small bluejay, flew around in circles for a moment and perched on Steven’s head.

“Whoa!” Steven was impressed.

“Umm, Amethyst, I think you may be overdoing it a little,” Greg tried to reign her in.

“Uh, chill it dude,” Amethyst said disdainfully, while still in bird-form. Greg put up his hands nonconfrontationally. “I don’t mean you’re doing it too much for you, but I’m not sure anything like that will work for Steven,” he tried to explain.

“I want to try it all!” Steven yelled in excitement.

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew, Steven,” Greg said, in a last ditch effort to curb magical disasters. He noticed a customer approach the car wash and went to receive them.

Amethyst flew down from Steven’s head and shapeshifted back to herself.

“Alright! Show me how to change into a... uh... huge lion!” Steven asked her.

“Actually, Greg is right,” she replied. “If you’re gonna do this, you’ve gotta start with something easy.”

Steven thought for a minute. “Like that cat you turned into?”

Amethyst, not realising that for a beginner shapeshifting into a cat and shapeshifting into a lion would be just as hard, said: “That sounds good. Now follow my lead.” They stepped off to the other side of the building.

Amethyst closed her eyes. “First, think of what you wanna be,” she explained, motioning to her head, “and then, just shake it out,” she demonstrated by dropping her arms down to her sides, shaking them. She turned into light and suddenly she was a cat. She walked over to Steven. “See?” She said with a chuckle. “Now your turn.”

Steven wasn’t convinced but shrugged and said “okay.” He closed his eyes, but kept peeking. He started a whiny chant “caaaatttt...” He flexed so hard sweat started beading on his forehead and water was pooling in his eyes.

“Now you’re too tense,” Amethyst said, still in cat-form, opening a bag of potato chips. “Just relax and feel it,” she directed with eyes closed, took a chip and chomped on it with her cat-mouth. “Bio-rhythms, yo,” she clarified.

Steven rubbed his temples with his finger tips. “Feeeellll iiitttt,” he tried to coax his biorhythms. His cheeks started to turn red.

“Ehh, if you're not ready, we can try later,” Amethyst said, doubting the entire enterprise and her own abilities in teaching gem stuff. Nobody had taught her how to use any of her powers, she’d just always known. She didn’t even know whether Steven was actually going to be able to do it or if he was just a normal human with a gem in his belly.

“No wait! I can do it!” Steven pleaded and tried one more time. Amethyst shapeshifted back into herself, sitting on the ground, ready to give up.

Steven closed his eyes and kept them closed this time. He waved his arms around according to a rhythm only he could feel, exhailing “yeah, yeah!” and indeed it did seem like he was “feeling it.” He thrust his arms forward with a “Huh!”

But he hadn’t changed shape. Amethyst got up. “Well it was a good try,” she said with a chuckle.

A meowing noise came from nowhere.

Steven opened his eyes and looked at Amethyst while Amethyst glanced around, and looked at Steven’s hands. Steven opened his palm and discovered that one of his fingers had a cat’s head. It meowed again. They stared at it in shock, and then looked up into each other’s eyes at the same moment, with huge grins across their faces.

Amethyst laughed.

“This is so cool!” Steven said with a huge smile. His first ever shapeshifting! Sure it wasn’t a full-body shapeshift as he had intended, but it was better than nothing!

“You should go show your dad,” Amethyst said. “He’s gonna freak out!” The cat finger meowed again, as if pleased with this plan.

Steven ran to the other side of the building, where Greg was lounging in a beach chair, sunglasses on, drinks in the cooler and tunes in the boombox. Because even when on the job, Greg Universe knew how to take it chill.

“Dad, I’m back!” Steven called across the lot, hiding the cat finger and walked up to his dad. Greg raised his sunglasses and greeted him back: “Hey, Schtu-ball.”

“Check it out!” He revealed his cat-headed finger with dramatic flair. Greg startled so much that he flung his waterbottle high in the air. The open bottle hit Steven on the head and sprayed water everywhere, including on Steven’s hand. The cat finger hissed and growled – it clearly hated getting wet.

“I shapeshifted my finger into a cat!” Steven explained.

“Whoa!” Greg freaked out, then transitioned his discomfort into an uncomfortable chuckle. “Is that... a thing you can do now?” He said, poorly masking his worry. “That’s pretty... cool.”

Steven did not pick up on any of Greg’s hesitation. “I know, right? I’m gonna take this show on the road!” Steven said and started laughing as he stumbled away, cat finger held high.

\- - -

First Steven went into the Big Donut and ordered a donut. Lars was hanging about as Sadie served Steven. “That’ll be a dollar-oh-five, Steven,” Sadie said when it was all bagged and ready to go.

“Mm, okay, here’s a nickel,” Steven said, digging a coin from his pocket and placing it on the counter, “and a buck!” He whipped out the cat finger, which was holding a rolled up dollar bill in its mouth.

“Whaaaat!?!” Lars and Sadie yelled as one at the bizarre sight. The cat finger meowed and dropped the bill on the counter.

“Oh Steven, that’s adorable!” Sadie exclaimed and tenderly reached to pet the cat finger. It started to purr. She pulled away. “Are... you making it purr?”

“It kinda does what it wants,” Steven said, realising that he did not know anything about how this worked.

“Really?” Lars said and reached out to touch the cat finger. He poked the cat finger in the face, and it yowled and bit him. “Ow!” Lars yelled and glared at Steven.

“See what I mean?” He turned the cat finger to face himself, and told it off: “Bad cat finger!”

“Aww, I’m sure it just wants to play,” Sadie defended it. Steven gasped.

“You’re right! And he doesn’t have any friends!”

“Oh my gosh, it’s just like you, Steven!” Lars mocked him, waving his arms and making a face. Steven ignored him, took a few steps back and with his eyes closed focused on his bio-rhythms. He took a deep breath and waved his arms around, focusing. And soon enough four more cat heads appeared on the rest of the fingers of his hand.

“Ha-haa!” Steven lifted his cat fingered hand triumphantly and ran out of the Big Donut.

\- - -

Next he wanted to show his cats to Peedee so he ran to the Beach Citywalk Fries, yelling as he approached.

“Hey, Peedee!” He waved with his cat fingers hand but then switched hands and hid it for the surprise. But Steven got surprised himself when he got to the counter and realised what he was seeing. Peedee was alone in the shop window, serving customers.

“Whoa, you work the deep-fryer now?” He asked. Peedee was pleased that Steven was impressed. “Make me some fry bits!” Steven yelled, banging his non-cat fingered fist on the counter. Peedee’s expression soured.

“Steven, I take my job seriously,” Peedee said with what he thought was a professional expression. “Please use the actual menu.” But Steven ignored his words and professional demeanor and continued banging. “Give me the bits! The bits!”

Mr. Fryman had been standing off to the side, observing the exchange, and interjected.

“Alright listen, it'll be over sooner if you just give him what he wants,” Mr. Fryman said to Peedee, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. Peedee sighed and went to the fryer.

Steven called to him. “Whoa, hey, hey, it's not for me. It's fo' dese guys!” He pulled his other hand from behind his back to reveal the handful of cat fingers. The cat heads meowed and yowled in disharmony.

“What the -!?” Mr. Fryman reacted without filter and stared at Steven’s hand. Peedee came back from the fryer, placing the bits on the counter. “Uh here’s your-“ He stopped and stared at the cat fingers, but managed to maintain his professional attitude enough to eventually finish his sentence: “...bits.”

Steven put his hand towards the frybits so that the cat heads could eat. Mr. Fryman stared on in horror. “I... can’t look away,” he mused out loud.

“Steven, that is freakish!” Peedee said.

Steven looked at him in confusion. “No it’s not, it's natural” he defended and decided to demonstrate. “Sha-ake... it... out!” He chanted while shaking his human hand to shapeshift them into cats too. One by one the fingers of his left hand also turned to different colored cats. “See?” Steven waved his new cat fingered hand as evidence of the naturalness of his condition.

“Whoa!” Peedee and Mr. Fryman exclaimed.

“You know who would love this?” Mr. Fryman said, turning to Peedee. “Your older brother. Yo Ronaldo!” He hollered towards the back of the shop.

Ronaldo came in carrying a big cardboard box. “What’s up da-“ he started but noticed Steven’s cat fingers. He dropped the box in astonishment, yelled and ran to the counter, pushing Peedee out of his way. “I've gotta take a pic for Keep Beach City Weird!” He said and fished his phone from his pocket.

Steven held his hands up for Ronaldo’s photo and asked, “what’s that?”

“It's my blog!” He set the phone down on the counter to accentuate his words. “Keep! Beach! City! Weird!” He explained while thrusting his hands back and forth to emphasise each word. Ronaldo didn’t notice Peedee’s side eye and groan.

“Oh can I see the picture?” Steven asked and Ronaldo handed him the phone. Steven took it, but the cat heads that ended up holding the weight of the phone with their faces yowled in agony and irritation. “Yikes!” Steven yelled and dropped the phone, holding his hands up. “Sorry guys. I guess cat fingers don't function well as... fingers.” He began to have second thoughts about his situation.

\- - -

As the day went on, Steven kept discovering new difficulties sharing his life with cat fingers. He hadn’t actually managed to eat any of the fry bits, as the cat heads kept eating them before they made it into his mouth. So he decided to get himself some food at home. But even that wasn’t working. Even trying to open the fridge door and taking a sandwich out was aggravating the cats.

“I'm just getting a snack!” Steven tried to reason with the constantly yowling and hissing fingers. But the cats wouldn’t stop squirming long enough to grab the cold plate from the fridge.

Just then Amethyst popped in from inside the temple. “Steven! Need some help?” She asked.

Steven turned around, holding his sandwich plate with his elbows. “Nah, i-it's cool,” he said with a nervous chuckle. He didn’t want Amethyst to see that he was feeling like a shapeshifting failure.

“Oh gooood! See ya later then,” Amethyst said and stepped up to the warp pad.

“Huh?” Steven startled and dropped the plate.

“I’m gonna go search for monsters, bye!” And she was gone in a flash.

Steven looked at the empty warp pad, the sandwich on the floor and his cat fingers.

“Enough!” He cried out, angry that he had missed out on both a gem mission and a snack. “No more cat fingers! I want Steven fingers!” A horrifying thought crossed his mind and he specified: “And I don't mean little me heads on fingers, I mean my _regular_ fingers!” He sat down on a bench by the window, took a deep breath, held his head with one hand while concentrating on making the cats disappear from his other hand. Instead, a cat head popped out of his head where he was holding his hand: like a huge, cute, fluffy zit.

Steven tried to see what was going on but turned his body too far and fell of the bench. He broke his fall and landed heavily over his right arm, pissing off the cat fingers in that hand. But when he got up he saw, to his horror that where his cat fingered hand had been, now was a single cat head. And it wanted to go places. Steven didn’t have control over his arm as the cat head was pulling in every which way it wanted to go.

“Ahhh! Ahhh! Stop!” Steven yelled, trying to reign in the cat arm by grabbing it with his left hand – but then his right foot turned into a cat head and he fell again. More cats kept bursting forth from his body as he lay on the floor, screaming and crying. “Amethyst! Help! Amethyst! D-“ He gasped when he realised that there was a person in Beach City that he might could reach. “Dad!”

But Greg Universe was unlikely to hear Steven’s cries at the beach house while he himself was still at work at It’s A Wash. He wouldn’t have been able to hear him even if he hadn’t been humming along to the music playing in his headphones. But of course Steven knew that Greg wouldn’t be able to hear him shouting and had made his way – painfully, sprouting ever more cats as he progressed – to the car wash.

Greg was hosing the ground outside the car wash when Steven approached. Steven shambled with his unwieldy cat body and bumped into some trash cans. Greg heard the noise and lifted his headphones.

“Hello? Who’s there?” He called out, scanning the darkness, not noticing Steven’s approach until he was right up to him. “We’re closed, come back tomor-aaahhh!” Greg interrupted his sentence with a yell when he spotted Steven, and reflectively hosed the mass of lurching cats in fright.

The force of the water jet made Steven roll further away on the tarmac. The cats yowled and hissed furiously at being hosed. They turned to attack Greg. Hardly audible from within the mass of cats, Steven cried out: “Dad!”

Greg turned the hose off. “Huh?” Steven rolled onto his back, cats temporarily receding. “Steven?” Greg gasped in horror.

“Dad!” Steven looked at Greg with tears in his eyes. “Help!” He grunted as cats began to burst forth from his body again. He writhed on the wet ground, a mewing pile of monstrosity. “The cat fingers are taking over my body!” He managed to yell.

Greg dropped his hose. “Hold on, wha... I'll get you out of there!” He grabbed two cat heads and began to pull. Steven’s cat arm attacked and bit Greg in the arm, grabbed him and threw him off to the side.

The cats crawled in the other direction, while Steven was looking back to see if Greg was okay. “No! Bad! Bad cat fingers!” He yelled as the cats continued to walk his body on all fours away from Greg. They waded directly into a deep puddle on the ground . The cats in his arms and legs reacted violently to being submerged and the entire mass of cats and Steven jumped to the roof of the car wash.

Greg followed him a few paced behind, freaking out and not knowing what to do. “Can’t you make them go away?” He asked, panic creeping in his voice.

“I tried, but it made it worse!” Steven explained, clinging to the building as even more and even bigger cats grew on his body. Greg could only stare in horror, unaware of the water from the hose pooling around his feet. “Ohh, my life is over!” Steven cried. “I can't go on magic adventures! I can't even open the fridge! And I'll never get to have another water fight with you, Dad! Because these things hate...” Steven opened his remaining eye with the realisation: “water! They hate water! Dad, spray me again!” He pleaded and Greg aimed the jet at the mass of cats that was still – but for how long? – his son.

Steven and the cats fell to the ground again from the impact of the water. The cats were furious and the noise of their yowling was deafening. Even with the jet turned on as high as it could go, the angry mass of cats was unaffected and launched towards Greg.

Greg held his ground, hosing the advancing force while screaming in fear. Steven clung to the side of the car wash and managed to halt the cats.

“It's not enough water!” Steven shouted over his shoulder. As he turned back forward to cling to the wall, he noticed what was right ahead of him and he gasped as a new idea formed. “Turn on the super-wash!” Steven yelled.

Greg blanched. “No, I won't do it! It's too dangerous!” He answered in horror.

“You've got to! I'm a monster! I'm an adorable cat monster!” Steven pleaded, while more and more cats were appearing.

Greg started to tear up as he yelled back: “No you're not! You're my son!”

“Dad! Please! Aahhh!” Steven screamed as he lost his remaining eye under a tabby.

Greg hesitated but since he couldn’t think of anything else and he couldn’t just do nothing, he ran inside and activated the super-wash by flipping the safety switches and slamming the On-button. Steven crawled in like a small, furry car. Greg followed along in helpless horror from outside, peering through the windows as Steven got sprayed by jets of water on all sides. He passed through brushes and onto another set of jets. Greg ran ahead to meet him at the exit, preparing the hose.

A cloud of steam breathed out as the super-wash process was done, and Greg waited and trembled for the steam to clear.

Steven lay on the ground with his eyes closed, his clothes torn, but blessedly catless. He cracked open his eyes. Greg approached with tears in his eyes, sighing in relief.

“Dad,” Steven said, seeing his father with both eyes and being so thankful for the beautiful sight. “We did it.” With great effort he began to rise off the ground. He reached out his hand to Greg, and a small, white cat finger popped out from his forefinger.

They both screamed in terror and reflectively Greg hosed the finger until it was no longer a cat. They both breathed heavily but smiled wearily at each other. Finally it was over.

\- - -

The next morning Steven was making himself a sandwich in his kitchen when Amethyst warped back.

“Hey man, are you okay?” She greeted him, and checked his hands, surprised to find no more cats. Steven smiled and replied: “I’m fine, but it was almost a total CAT-tastrophe!”

Amethyst forced a smile and a chuckle at his terrible attempt at a pun.

“But I’m feeling much better MEOW!” Steven continued, looking at her right in the eyes with an eager expression of “eh? eh?” 

Amethyst groaned.

“Ehhh? What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?” Steven asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Okay, that's enough,” Amethyst said and walked to the temple door.

“Wait, I've been coming up with cat jokes all morning. Amethyst, I'm FELINE fine. Everything's PURRRRFECT! Oh come on! I'm just KITTEN around!” He called after her as the door to her room in the temple opened and closed behind her.


End file.
